in a fit of enthusiasm and delusion whilst leafing through debbie abrahams' book blankets and throws to knit i ran down to the wool shop and picked up a few balls of rowan denim to start knitting the picnic blanket. there are 81 squares in the blanket so i reserve the right to commute this project to a cushion cover or two! there's a pic of the whole blanket at colourway, as well as pics of all the blankets in the book.
what i like about this blanket is the fact that it'll be hard wearing, it's machine washable and tumble dryable and i'm told that the denim yarn fades properly like jeans do with wear and laundering. in short i don't want to put the effort into making a blanket that ends up being decorative and i'm convinced that this will be usable as well as pretty.
the denim yarn shrinks in length by 20% when it's first washed which is why these squares all look long. they are long until they are washed. and i can't wash them until the whole thing is sewn together.
this is the basketweave square. i've got 4 so far and i need 6 altogether.
this is the tweedy rib square. i've got 7 so far and i need 10 altogether.
this is the reverse stripe square. i've got 5 so far and i need 8 altogether.
this is the summer stripe square. i've got 2 in the first colourway and 4 in the second colourway so far and i need 8 altogether, 4 in each colourway.
this is the texture and cable square. i've got 9 so far in the first colourway, 2 in the second and i need 18 altogether, 14 (yikes) in the first colourway and 4 in the second.
this is the patio square. i've got 2 so far and only need 2 altogether. yay, all done :-)
my regular pictures of the apple pips square were rubbish... i've got 4 so far and need 4 altogether. yay. all done :-)
i haven't taken a pic of the textured check square yet. i've made 5 so far and need 8 altogether.
this is the sunshine square yet. i've made 3 in navy and 3 in ecru so far and need 5 in navy and 4 in ecru altogether.
this is the beaded circles square yet. i've made 2 in navy and 4 in ecru so far and need 4 in navy and 4 in ecru altogether.
i started knitting this in november 2003 and so far i have 57 out of 81 squares completed and five vertical strips out of nine together.
on october 17th 2004 i laid out the first two columns of nine squares (there are nine columns of nine altogether) and started to sew them together.
so far i've bought 63 balls of yarn: 25 in ecru, 16 in nashville (the dark blue denim) and 22 in tennessee (the mid blue denim which is absolutely nothing like the greeny colour it is on rowan's website.) the book reckons you need 67 balls for the blanket. no way am i buying all that at once, and neither am i worrying about dye lots, i'll let slightly different colours of yarn add to the patchwork effect.
